Debates of Nov. 27th, 2007

Tackling Violent Crime Act

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to tell the member that I did not vote in favour of the bill. If the member had watched, he would have seen that.

The member opposite was a member of the Mike Harris hatchet job to social programs in the province of Ontario. Many of the crimes and gangs we see in the city of Toronto now exist because of his government in Ontario. When it was in office, it slashed the social programs, victimized communities and eliminated crime prevention programs.

If those members were really interested in public safety, they would heed the call of the police chiefs to keep the gun registry instead of trying to destroy it. The member has no lectures to give to anybody on crime prevention. The member, with Mike Harris, did more than anybody else to destroy it .

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Windsor—Tecumseh referred to a study called “Unlocking America”. The study shows that the net result in the United States is an expensive system that relies much too heavily on imprisonment, is increasingly ineffective and diverts large sums of taxpayer money from more effective crime control strategies.

According to the study, much of the burden has fallen on disadvantaged minorities. Blacks and Latinos make up 60% of the U.S. prison population. According to the report, 8% of American black men of working age are now behind bars. In effect, the report says, “The imprisonment binge created our own American apartheid”.

In Canada, although the first nations population makes up 3% of the population, 20% are incarcerated under the dangerous offender category.

If the bill goes through as it is, specifically the dangerous offender provision, in the opinion of the member will this increase incarceration rates for first nations people?

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, everything the member says about who is in jail in the United States is exactly correct, and it is in that report. It is really unfortunate the “Unlocking America” report was just released yesterday. I think the members of the justice committee would have really benefited from studying it.

He spoke about what would happen to the first nations. Ultimately, they will be the ones who will carry the brunt of the changes. I can only hope the Supreme Court, in its wisdom, will strike down the bill as unconstitutional.

Let me point out something else the neo-cons tried to do. They tried to disenfranchise inmates from the right to vote. Given the high prison population in the United States of America, what happens has a real bearing on the outcome of an election because many people are disenfranchised and unable to vote. Those are exactly the people who the neo-cons would have not go to the polls.

[Ken Epp, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have a very curious question. The member proudly announced that he did not vote for the bill. That means he either voted against it or he abstained. He sat in his chair or he was not in the House at the time of the vote.

It is my understanding that most of the Liberals, including their leader, voted for it. Could the member please explain to us why the leader would lead his party to vote for a bill that according to him is unconstitutional and one which he could not support? He must be saying that his leader and his colleagues are all wrong.

Is that what the member is saying?

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, first, I will answer for myself. I wanted to ensure that I could give the speech today in the House. The member will have to watch to see how I vote when the bill comes concludes at third reading and how I will vote on Bill C-25 as well.

I have spent too many years of my life working to try to create safer communities than to be in agreement with a bill that does so much to hurt communities, destroy young and older people and not make our communities safer.

Once again, if the Conservatives want to fight crime and really reduce it, listen to the chiefs of police and do it through social development. It comes from that.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we spend day after day in the House playing a farcical little drama, where we have the Conservative members saying that everyone else is obstructing their crime agenda, that their crime agenda is being purposely held back and that all the little old ladies are somehow unsafe because of members of Parliament trying to do their duty.

Yet, we have the example with this bill. We passed a bill on raising the age of consent, and the government did nothing to move that forward. We had the bill to deal with gun crimes, and the government sat on it. It went to the extraordinarily length of bringing it back as a new bill. Then it stood and said, after proroguing Parliament for an extra month, that the other parties did not take their jobs seriously. We certainly take our jobs seriously in the House.

I have watched this farcical drama where we finish a bill, get it to third reading, then it goes all the way back so the government can run this little drama through again.

Does the hon. member feel that by going through the motions again and again, the government has absolutely no real interest at the end of the day of getting the crime agenda off? As a Parliament, we could have dealt with the crime bills and then gone on to deal with more substantive issues to people. It is something that works in the Conservatives' little ten percenters that they mail into people's neighbourhoods and it is something that works on their attack ads on television?

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I very much agree with the member. We could have passed most of these bills as they came through the House. Then we could have had the choice to vote for those that did some good and to vote against those that did not.

There is no question that the neo-conservative agenda is not to deal with the reality of crime but to create the fear of crime unrealistically. We see it in the United States on FOX television, which the Conservative members, the neo-cons, would love to have play in Canada on all the channels to scare the public. Then they could offer a pseudo-solution. They way they approach this is they exploit the crime bills and crime victims, because they are being exploited as well.

Moneys spent on useless incarceration could be better spent on assisting victims of crime and deterring crime. However, the neo-conservative government has taken on the agenda that it is better to keep mental health patients in jail rather than in hospitals. Their agenda is to try to drive the fear of crime for political gain. That does not work in the Waterloo region.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on Bill C-2 which we are examining today.

It is a pleasure for me to have the opportunity to help those listening to us by casting some light on what an omnibus bill is. An omnibus bill is a bill which combines several bills that could not be enacted in the previous session because the government decided to prorogue the House and terminate them at whatever stage they had reached. That was the choice of the Conservative Party and the reason behind Bill C-2, the bill before us now. If the government had not decided to prorogue the House, a goodly number of those bills would have already been passed.

Before getting into the heart of Bill C-2, I would offer a reminder to those listening. When a bill amending the Criminal Code is being passed, we need to keep the crime situation in mind. That is something easily done by people who follow the television news. We all know how the print and electronic media try to attract readers and viewers by focusing on certain situations, trying to sell papers or attract viewers by interviewing victims or their relatives.

Ours is, of course, a media-driven society. The media make the situation more difficult when they neglect to show the other side of the coin. It is all very well to focus on crimes, to opine that certain sentences are too soft, and so on, and to try to find evidence that the justice system is not working, but when it comes to the other side of the coin, discussing the crime situation in general, the media is not pulling its weight there.

This is what I wish to draw to your attention, as well as to the attention of those listening. Things must be balanced. That is our objective as legislators, to begin with. And it is my colleagues here in this House, such as the hon. members for Trois-Rivières, Shefford and Manicouagan, and all the members of the Bloc Québécois, who have the onerous task of balancing things out.

The Conservatives have but one thing in mind: to do everything they can to hold on to power. I often say jokingly—though I sometimes believe it seriously—that power drives one mad. One only needs to look at how the Prime Minister and some of his ministers are behaving to see what it is like to be in power after having been in opposition. A person might well say that power does have that effect on certain people and their sanity.

I am providing this background because crime has been declining steadily in Quebec as well as in Canada over the past 15 years or so. That is not an invention of the Bloc Québécois or the sovereignists that we are. Statistics Canada recently confirmed that the national crime rate reached its lowest point in over 25 years in 2006. Moreover, the homicide rate in Quebec was the lowest in that province since 1962.

So, we are doing fine. I am bringing this up, because the hon. members may have heard of people being surveyed. The Conservative Party, through the government, conducted a large survey of more than 2,000 people across Canada to determine how it might win its election by listening to what the people had to say about crimes and punishments. Interestingly enough, however, there was no mention of the current state of crime in any of the questions; I know this because, by chance, one of my assistants was among those surveyed. The press and electronic media give the impression that crime is rampant, but when we check the statistics and see that crime is down, with a crime rate at its lowest level in 25 years, we put things in perspective.

That is, of course, what the Bloc Québécois is trying to do. We have always been very aware and have always endeavoured to find a balance.

It is not easy to find a balance between the Conservatives, the Liberals and the NDP. I can say candidly that they are pretty much all the same. In light of all the surveys published all over the place, it is clearly important to have a party representing a majority of Quebeckers and trying to bring some balance to this House.

The Bloc Québécois has tried to bring such balance throughout the debate on Bill C-2 while at the same time bearing in mind the statistics. As I indicated, the national crime rate reached its lowest point in over 25 years in 2006. In Quebec, the homicide rate was the lowest since 1962.

Does this means that all is well? No, all is not well. We know that crime has not been eradicated. It is sad to say, but in our industrialized countries where the rich and the poor coexist alongside one another, there will always be crime. Our objective is to try to lower the crime rate as much as possible, and that is something the members of the Bloc Québécois work on every day.

However, we must also put all this crime into perspective. I will provide another statistic. In terms of violent crime, Quebec has the second lowest rate and is just behind Prince Edward Island. Quebec even recorded a 4% decrease in youth crime in 2006, surpassing all the other provinces.

It is important for members from other provinces to understand that it was quite some time ago that Quebec opted for social reintegration rather than repression and increased sentences, the establishment of minimum sentences or other measures. That is a choice made by Quebec.

I do not wish to repeat the statistics mentioned by other colleagues in this House, but when we look at U.S. states that also opted for reintegration rather than repression—the state of New York among others—we see that crime rates in those states, compared to others, are decreasing. That is the kind of statistic that is of interest to us.

As parliamentarians, we must mitigate the very harmful influence of media sensationalism. It is understandable because they have to sell newspapers or the best television news reports. They will try to capture the sensational aspect of an incident rather than portraying the balance that can be inherent in a society.

It is important to us that the rest of Canada understand that Quebec has done things differently. In addition, the effects on crime rates are very important and hence the position of the Bloc Québécois in the committee that discussed Bill C-2. Our position was different than that of the other parties in this House. We do not hold that against them. It is just that Quebec and the rest of Canada are very different. We do not think in the same way.

One day, Quebeckers will make the rest of Canada understand. We will decide to have our own country with our own laws and so forth. In the meantime, we participate and try to bring Canadian society up to speed with Quebec society. And that is not easy. It is not easy.

I will give some examples of the Bloc Québécois proposals made in committee that were rejected.

We proposed amendments to Bill C-2, to eliminate the practice of granting parole almost automatically after one-sixth of a sentence has been served. Since in Quebec we have reintegration, this causes a problem. Automatic parole after one-sixth of a sentence has been served means that when we want to create programs and force criminals to attend therapy, we find that they participate less when they know that they are automatically eligible for parole after serving one-sixth of their sentence.

Again, everyone will say that it does not make sense that criminals are eligible for parole after serving one-sixth of their sentence. This has been going on across Quebec. We wanted to change this in a House committee, but our proposal was rejected by the Conservative Party and the other parties.

Once again, Quebec society is much more advanced than Canadian society.

We also suggested putting an end to statutory release once two-thirds of a sentence has been served, by having a professional formally assess inmates regarding the overall risk of reoffending that they represent to the community.

As for social reintegration, we believe that statutory release once two-thirds of a sentence has been served is no longer acceptable in Quebec society. Before criminals are almost automatically released, we want them to be assessed by professionals. We made that suggestion in committee, but, once again, the other parties did not agree.

We suggested that the onus of proof should be reversed in the case of criminals found guilty of the offences of loan-sharking, procuring, robbery, fraud over $5,000 and counterfeiting in order to facilitate the seizure of assets that are the product of crime.

It was the Bloc Québécois that proposed reversing the burden of proof with respect to the proceeds of crime in cases involving organized groups. As some may remember, the Bloc Québécois led that crusade against organized crime by proposing that the burden of proof be reversed so that it would no longer be up to the Crown to prove where the money came from to acquire the goods. The opposite is now true. The burden of proof automatically falls on members of criminal organizations, who must prove that they paid for their goods with legitimate earnings. Since that is difficult to do, goods can be seized automatically.

That bill concerning criminal organizations was supported by the other parties in this House. We proposed to do the same for the issue under consideration today. Why not reverse the onus for criminals who have been found guilty of offences involving usury, procuring, robbery or fraud? That would cover not criminal organizations, but organized criminals. In cases of fraud exceeding $5,000, these criminals would be required to prove that the goods they acquired were paid for using legitimately earned funds. Failing that, the goods would be seized.

Believe it or not, the other parties rejected the amendments the Bloc Québécois proposed for Bill C-2.

We proposed attacking the street gang problem by giving the police better tools to work with, such as longer warrants for investigations using GPS tracking. As I said earlier, Quebec society is a little farther ahead than the rest of Canada. GPS technology is an integral part of fighting crime in Quebec. Unfortunately, the proposed amendments do not include this suggestion made by the Bloc Québécois.

We proposed a ban on wearing signs, symbols or other indications that identify individuals as belonging to groups recognized by court as criminal organizations.

Once again, we struck at organized criminal groups. Quebec fought a battle. It went very well. We are lucky to have with us in the House the former minister responsible for public security in Quebec, the hon. Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, who did an excellent job in that position. He went after organized criminal groups directly, with the support of the Bloc Québécois, by amending the Criminal Code to provide for reverse onus of proof. We did well. We wanted to ban the wearing of insignia by criminal groups, organized gangs of bikers and others, but this amendment to Bill C-2 was rejected.

We wanted to put an end to the rule whereby time spent in detention prior to trial was doubled for sentencing purposes. A sentence would begin at the moment of detention rather than at the time of sentencing, in order to put an end to an abusive practice which did no credit to the administration of justice.

We discovered that, when the rule is applied, that is, when an individual is taken into custody prior to trial, the time involved is doubled in the sentence. This is standard, and criminals have obviously understood it. So they put off their trial as long as possible since, when they are in custody prior to trial, they get a bonus of double time and a reduced sentence.

Quebec society understood it well because of the fight against organized crime and all that. We put these amendments forward, but, unfortunately, none of the ones we put forward was passed, even though some have the unanimous approval of the ministers of public security in Quebec and other provinces.

This exemplifies the Conservative government, which has its blinkers on tight, which conducts polls with very specific focus, and which tells us that no changes will be allowed to a bill and that it will be made a vote of confidence.

So, the Bloc Québécois will support the conclusions of Bill C-2, except we would have liked to improve it. However, once again, the sway of power over these Conservative men and women is such that they are self absorbed. They show no desire to improve bills. They think that they are right, that truth and life are within their power and are in the end opposed to any idea of improvement.

This is what power has done to them. We will see what happens in the next election. As I am the Bloc's chief organizer, I want to reiterate that we will support the bill, not because we are frightened by the possibility of a vote of confidence, but because we think it will further the fight against organized crime, even though this is not the way we would have chosen.

Here is an example. I am getting to the core of Bill C-2. It combines five bills, including one that strengthens the provisions on offences involving firearms. It is perfect. Initially, Bill C-10 was simply being repeated. That bill sought to amend the Criminal Code to increase minimum prison sentences to five, seven or 10 years, depending on whether the crime was a repeat offence, for eight serious offences involving the use of a firearm, if the weapon used was not a hunting rifle. Once again, we see the Conservative vision. It is a weapon, but not a hunting weapon.

For anyone who follows these things, hunting rifles have changed considerably over the past 30 years. First of all, they are no longer made of the same materials and they are very light. This often makes it very difficult for law enforcement. I would like to believe that no hunters will use their weapons, except there is no longer a registry. Indeed, the goal of the Conservatives is to eliminate the gun registry, claiming that only hunters are going to acquire weapons. Yet, given the new technology, more and more criminals are going to use long guns—as they like to call them—precisely because they are lighter, thanks to new technology and so on. The Conservative philosophy wants to protect long guns. Naturally, to do so, there can be no registry. After all, no one who has a long gun is a criminal.

I am sorry, but plenty of cabins get robbed and hunters' weapons make their way into the criminal networks. Yet, this legislative amendment would not apply to those who have firearms. And I repeat, when it comes to these offences involving firearms, for instance, it says “if the weapon used is not a hunting weapon”. Consequently, the bill deals with all weapons except hunting weapons.

I have a great deal of difficulty understanding that, but I can understand the Conservative philosophy behind it. To the Conservatives, you can do anything with a hunting weapon. It is as simple as that. That is all there is to it. There is a reason they want to abolish the gun registry.

I would like to digress for a moment. In Quebec, 95% of hunters registered their guns. This is no problem, because there are no longer any fees. We supported the amendment that eliminated the renewal fee. Since people had already registered their guns, no one lost any sleep over this, except in the west, where the situation is reversed, obviously. Westerners were opposed to the registry from the start and decided not to register their guns. Today, to please western Canada, the Conservatives have once again decided to abolish the gun registry, even though hunters in the rest of the country could live with it. This Conservative approach to governing is evident in this bill.

Once again, all we want to say to the people who are watching is that, yes, bills have to evolve. That is true, but we have to be careful. We must not succumb to the sensationalism of the media, which will not hesitate to blow any accident or crime out of proportion to sell newspapers or get people to watch newscasts. Yet statistics prove that Quebec's approach, which consists of rehabilitating criminals by giving them every possible opportunity to work their way back into society, is much more effective at reducing the crime rate than the punitive approach some societies have opted for, as the Conservatives would like to do.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank my colleague for his speech. He spoke about the crime rate, which is at an all time low in Quebec as well as in Canada. He also said that the media want sensational news. And he mentioned that there must be balance.

The NDP has been talking for a long time about this balance based on three principles. The first is prevention, that is, we work with young people and we try to have crime prevention programs in place. Second, we want a certain amount of protection, that is, enough police officers in the community to work with these individuals. Last, there is punishment, which we are discussing today in Bill C-2.

Does he see this as an example of a well-balanced program to fight crime?

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

By dint of listening to the Bloc Québécois, the NDP has improved its platform over the years. I commend him for using the Bloc Québécois' ideas; we are proud to share them with other parties. The NDP has adopted this philosophy. He is quite right when he says that this balance is not found in the bill.

That is why I was saying that the Bloc Québécois wanted to present amendments in order to achieve a certain balance. This option was not retained by the Conservatives because of their very conservative and republican leanings. They have this unfortunate tendency of copying what the Republicans are doing in the United States. We can feel it in this bill. Nevertheless, the Bloc would have appreciated it if the proposed amendments had been accepted. However, we will not reject the bill because of that.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, among all the arguments heard today, there is one thing that has not been addressed. It is all well and good to repress and imprison people for offences they have committed, but most of these offences are minimal and require minimal sentences. Such sentences are not served in federal penitentiaries, but in provincial penitentiaries.

Who will pay for the prison guards if there is not enough space? Who will build these prisons and pay for their needs? Will it be the federal government or the provincial government? After the new bill is implemented, will it be the provinces that pay and the federal government that benefits? I would like my esteemed colleague to answer my question.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Shefford for his question.

He is absolutely right. When the sentence is two years or less, it is in provincial jurisdiction. Sentences of two years and less will therefore be the responsibility of the Government of Quebec. That is why certain amendments allowed us to grant the money required in order to ensure this transition.

Once again, the Conservative Party is governing as though it were alone. We saw them do that in the manufacturing crisis. I know my colleague from Shefford is very affected by that crisis. Even though the government has billions of dollars, the Minister of Finance said that it is the provinces that will have to take action. It is provinces like Quebec and Ontario, who have a balanced budget or a deficit—in the case of Ontario—that have the responsibility and heavy burden of spending. The problem with this federation is that more than half our taxes are sent to Ottawa when the needs are in the provinces.

My colleague from Shefford gave a good example. Decisions like that that will bring Quebec slowly but surely toward sovereignty.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

Order, please.

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, Post-secondary Education; the hon. member for Mount Royal, Airbus.

Message from the Senate

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

I have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate has passed a certain bill, to which the concurrence of this House is desired.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-2, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the third time and passed.

Tackling Violent Crime Act

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to speak to this bill. It is a bill that has a number of problems as well as a number of positive elements. I want to take us through this kind of bizarre situation where we are being forced to accept the bad in order to get the good. That is the problem with an omnibus bill. If a whole bunch of things are put into legislation, we have to take the bad with the good.

It is even more bizarre in this particular situation when the government has threatened that it is a confidence motion. Canadians being told that they have to accept this bill with all the bad in it or there will be an election even if they do not want one.

I am going to go through the problematic parts of the bill as well as the good parts and explain how, in spite of our efforts to get a number of provisions through that could have been law by now, they have been held up a number of times by the Conservatives.

This bill is a compilation of five old bills. I will go through each of the particular clauses of the bill and mention some of the good and bad parts.

I will start with Bill C-27, which is really the only part of the bill that had not been through the House before. The rest could have been law now had the Conservatives not used the mechanisms they did in proroguing the House and in not bringing back the rest of the bills at the stages they were in Parliament.

The minister suggested today in committee that he was concerned or upset about the problems I had with this part of the bill. Of course, the problems came from concerns that experts had with Bill C-27. The minister should be concerned. When he brings forward a bill that many experts say has a very high probability of being unconstitutional, he should be concerned.

Let us look at the parts of the bill the experts were talking about. First, they suggested it could possibly be unconstitutional as related to section 7 of the charter. Under the old system, there were four reasons, I think, which my colleague brought up today, whereby a person could be declared a dangerous offender. Under the old system, the Crown or the prosecutor would say for which of the four reasons one would be a dangerous offender.

Now, under the reverse onus, they say people are guilty until they prove why they should not be categorized as dangerous offenders, but they do not specify which of the four items they mean. In spite of my colleague's efforts to get this into the bill, there is no explanation as to which of the four items the prosecutor or the Crown thinks makes a person a dangerous offender. It is like putting the onus on people to defend themselves when they do not know what the charge is or what the reason is or what they have to defend themselves against.

The other item in this particular part of the bill that the expert said contradicted a number of points government members were making is that the government says this is only for the most vicious of vicious criminals, only for the most dangerous offenders, but the expert legal witnesses once again outlined how the offences in the bill could easily lead to people who are not the most dangerous of dangerous offenders being caught in this particular mechanism inappropriately.

The third problem, which was not brought up specifically that I can remember, although I am not sure if it was brought up by the experts, is the whole philosophy of proportionality in the justice system. According to the theory or principle of proportionality, the penalty should match the crime in severity. It should be a reasonable match. If, under the mechanisms I just mentioned, people are given a life sentence for what are not the most serious offences, there would certainly be a good chance of going against that principle.

When we talk about taking away people's liberty for the rest of their lives, it is a very serious matter. If Parliament has erred in that area, I recommend that the courts look at that aspect of cases. Indeed, many of the legal expert witnesses said that would actually be the case.

I also said I would talk about some of the good elements in this section. There is a clause whereby the Crown has to say in court whether it will proceed with a dangerous offender hearing. There actually was an amendment from the NDP. I did not quite understand why that would be taken out, because I thought it was a good element in this part of the law. It would stop someone from falling through the cracks. It stops a procedural missing of that opportunity. The prosecutors have to say whether or not under the evidence they are going to proceed. Certainly when there is a potentially dangerous offender we would not want the opportunity to fall between the cracks.

Let us go on to the second element that is pushed into this huge omnibus bill: mandatory minimums. Of course we have supported some mandatory minimums, but certainly not to the degree that is in the bill. Once again, expert after expert came to the committee and showed how mandatory minimums, under certain extreme circumstances, indeed could easily make Canada a more dangerous place, not a safer place. We would have criminals who are learning from other criminals. They are less adjusted. Of course people always forget that virtually all of them come back to society so in essence we would be making Canada a more dangerous place.

That was not just evidence during committee. Let me repeat what was in the Ottawa Citizen today to corroborate that. The article states:

Most legal experts agree with retired judge John Gomery's criticism of new mandatory minimum sentences being proposed by the...government, calling them simplistic and likely to produce unjust outcomes.

Also, in the same article, Ed Ratushny, law professor at the University of Ottawa, called the growing reliance on mandatory minimums to fight crime “simplistic and naive”.

In the same article, William Trudell, head of the Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers, said, “What it says is, 'we don't trust you, judge'.”

In the same article, David Paciocco, a former crown prosecutor, said that apart from the human misery they impose, mandatory minimum sentences generate huge costs for taxpayers.

Once again the government seems to be ignoring any sense of respect for the committee process. I have never seen such a barrage of complaints against bills as there was against Bill C-10 and Bill C-9 , yet where were the amendments from the government? They were non-existent in terms of trying to bring in a just law based on the knowledge that we received at the committee stage.

Once again I will talk about the good parts in that old Bill C-10. There were new offences. One was an indictable offence for breaking and entering to steal firearms. There was an indictable offence for robbery to steal a firearm. We certainly agree with those two, but the mandatory minimums were pushed through in the last Parliament by the Conservatives with the help of the New Democratic Party and were certainly in excess of what we believed was appropriate.

Going to the third of the five bills included in this new version, it was Bill C-22, which would increase the age of consent from 14 to 16. It is another example of a bill that had passed the House already. The delay was incomprehensible to us. Parliamentarians wanted to get it through. Why did the Conservatives, either the justice minister and/or the House leader, delay the bill on three different occasions? On October 26, we offered to fast track seven different bills, I think, including this bill. Yet the bill was debated at second reading on October 30 of that year and did not go to committee until March 11, which was 11 weeks later. The government totally ignored our offer of fast tracking.

The second time, the government delayed the age of consent bill by proroguing Parliament. I do not know if there has been a time in history when justice was set back so far by a prorogation of Parliament. Which department had more bills stopped when Parliament was prorogued, more than any other department? It was the justice department. What a way for the government to slow down its own agenda needlessly.

Some of these bills are those that the minister kept saying today in committee he so wanted to get through quickly. Then he prorogued Parliament. Once again, a number of those bills easily could have been through by this time.

The third time the Conservatives delayed the age of consent bill by not reinstating it. It had already been through the House. It could have been reinstated to where it was instead of going back to square one and being thrown into an omnibus bill with problems from other bills that had not yet been debated, particularly Bill C-27. That component of it could actually have slowed down and sabotaged something that people wanted to get through Parliament.

Finally, in what seemed to be even a fourth method of trying to stall the age of consent bill, the Conservatives started suggesting that a lot of bills would be confidence motions. Fortunately they have withdrawn this, I think. So they were trying to find some way of getting an election, when once again all the bills on the order paper would die and we would lose the age of consent bill.

I want to go now to the fourth part of this bill. It is related to impaired driving. This is another bill that has already gone through committee. Again, it could have been reinstated. After a prorogation of Parliament, bills can be brought back with the consent of Parliament to the stages where they were, so four of these bills could have been brought back in far more advanced forms. Some of them could have been through now.

Of course they would have been through if we had not prorogued Parliament and if the Conservatives had not slowed down the process, but the Conservatives could have brought these bills along faster and put them through instead of putting them into a huge bill where any one of a number of things could slow them down.

It was the committee's duty to spend time in committee and call witnesses to go over the items that they had not yet dealt with in those parts of the bills, particularly Bill C-27, which had not been through committee yet, and of course it was good to do that because of the very serious reservations that were raised in committee during those hearings.

Once again, I would highlight some of the good parts of the old bills. In this one, the impaired driving bill, one of the good parts is that it will make it easier to catch people who are impaired not only by alcohol but by drugs. We are making advances in making the streets safer by being able to have a mechanism for detecting and keeping off the roads people who impair themselves by the use of drugs. As members know, we already do that in relation to alcohol.

However, once again there is a questionable part in that section. In trying to close a loophole, the government added a section which suggests that only scientifically valid defences can be used as evidence. At what other time would a person go to court and only be allowed to use scientifically valid defences? When people go to court, they hear all sorts of witnesses on various things, and now the government is limiting their defences in this particular bill to only scientifically valid defences.

We also heard some disturbing testimony about the occasional lack of rigorous maintenance of machines used to determine abuse and about there being no regular schedules and no independent evaluation, all of which brought up concerns that should be dealt with by committee.

Members can see, with the number of concerns that I have talked about so far, and I have only done four of the five sections, that there are a number of major concerns. People's rights could be taken away. Constitutional rights could be abrogated. People could not bring evidence forward because it would be prohibited by a section of this bill.

This is a major undertaking so it is very important that the committee does its work and is not rushed, yet when I asked the justice minister this morning whether he believed in the committee process where we bring forward witnesses and then make some changes, he assented and said that he did believe in the committee process.

However, last week when the youth justice bill was in committee for one day the House leader complained that opposition parties were stonewalling. There was only one day for the committee to hear from all the witnesses, the minister, and departmental officials.

This particular bill is going to affect youth and the public in very serious ways. The Nunn commission did a comprehensive review of the bill and made a number of recommendations. The government took only one and then added something that did not come from that report at all and will totally change the way youth are sentenced.

Did the House leader expect one day of committee debate to be sufficient? When he was asked about this, he said it may not have been sufficient, but he would know on the quality of the debate. That is pretty weak.

The government House leader did not put in the bill the recommendation of the Nunn commission regarding the protection of the public to sentencing. One would think that victims in Canada would want to be protected. The public wants to be protected. A major recommendation was left out of the youth justice act, and yet the government House leader thought it was so simple that it only required one day of committee debate.

All parties in the House have to deal with the serious situation of the serious omissions and the things that have been put into this legislation without any rationale. We will find out from the witnesses their concerns about that.

Old Bill C-35, which dealt with reverse onus for bail and firearms, has been incorporated into this omnibus bill. Liberal members agree with this. We have been trying to rush it through. It could have been through a lot faster. Problems were raised in committee. There is the potential charter issue again about reverse onus.

In Canada, the general philosophy is that one is innocent until proven guilty. There are an uneasy number of provisions, as Bloc Québécois members mentioned this afternoon, where the onus is being reversed. The Conservatives are saying to Canadians that one is guilty unless proven innocent.

What do the experts have to say about reverse onus? What do the experts have to say about making this serious abrogation of a fundamental principle of Canadian law?

The experts have said that this reverse onus is not needed because it is going to make very little difference. This section has serious consequences. For the serious offences listed, where individuals would be denied bail, they are already being denied bail in the court system. This part of the bill would have little effect.

Liberal members have a number of problems with Bill C-2, but we do support its good elements. We certainly have problems with the way the Conservatives have forced bad things on Canadians by putting all the old bills into one omnibus bill.

We have problems with the Conservatives saying that we have to accept this bill, including the bad parts, or there will be an election. That is not a good way to develop policy. That is not a good way to get the trust of Canadians. Not allowing any amendments and not allowing any changes after having heard from knowledgeable experts is not a good way to develop legislation.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we have consistently been hearing the question of why the government has been rolling out its crime agenda, slowing things down, proroguing the House, delaying the passage of bills, starting the bills over again and then, of course, ramping up the attack on everyone else in this House that they are somehow soft on crime. The record in this House is that we have a government that has perhaps not a great interest in actually seeing these bills passed.

I would suggest that my hon. colleague read the book What's the Matter with Kansas. It is an excellent analysis of how the republican party has used hot button issues to continually drum up support in its hard core base and create the notion of wedge issues.

Of course, the analysis of how it uses the hot button issues shows that these issues are never to be settled. It does not matter how many crime bills come forward, there will always be another drunk driver. There will always be another punk that grabs a handbag at the bus stop from the sweet little old lady. There will always be a reason for the backbenchers of the Conservative Party to stand up and say that not enough is being done on crime, regardless of how much this House deals with crime issues.

I would ask my hon. colleague, does he not feel that all members of this House and the members who sat on the committee have certainly tried to work with the government to get some usable, workable crime legislation passed? What we have seen is that his work has continually been cheapened by the sloganeers in the Conservative Party.

I ask my hon. colleague whether or not this crime agenda will actually ever come into law because of the stalling that the Conservatives seem to be doing on these bills?

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, the member's questions are excellent ones. I would like to borrow that book which also sounds excellent.

I will not explain again the four different ways the government used to delay the age of consent and most of the other provisions in this bill. The member has made a very good point on that.

I think it is upsetting to the democracy of the House when we are bullied into accepting the bad things in an omnibus bill. We are told that amendments cannot be made or there will be an election.

The greatest affront, and it is not to me because I am not an expert in law or even a lawyer, is to the experts in the country who spend their careers in this area. They came before us and explained how these particular items would not work.

In fact, they explained how many of these provisions and this direction in general was going to make Canada a more dangerous place. People will be put into prisons for longer periods. Studies have shown that when they come out of prison they are more dangerous. Eventually all these prisoners come out.

I am sure what is most disturbing to my colleague is that the government is going in the wrong direction. The government has an emphasis on crime, although crime is going down in Canada. The government is moving in the wrong direction. It is great to fix the problem, but it is fixing it in the wrong direction. The government is going backwards and it could make the problem worse.

The government should be spending all this energy and resources on dealing with the prisoners through training, rehabilitation and healing in the prisons. This is what the prisoners are asking for. It has been proven to work in restorative justice. The government should be spending money on the prevention of poverty and social issues.

We need to be increasing the number of police officers. The experts have said time and time again that increasing the sentences makes people less sociable and more dangerous. It is also about their thought of being caught. We should have the services available to help those people.

I certainly encourage an entire new direction in this House. The emphasis should be on healing, education, rehabilitation and restorative justice. Then the vast majority of these people can be meaningful contributors to society. This is what the experts who work in the field have suggested to us at committee.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my Liberal colleague.

When a first-time offender is imprisoned for drunk driving, as the member was saying, he is sentenced for two years less a day. So these sentences must be served in a provincial penitentiary.

With the new Bill C-2, if many people are sentenced to two years less a day, they would have to serve their sentences in provincial penitentiaries.

What will be done about the tax burden, the money that will be injected into provincial prisons? Because we may be forced to build more prisons. If we incarcerate people, we will run out of room. If we run out of room, we will have to build prisons. Buildings cost money, as do the inherent operating costs, such as heating, hiring new staff, new prison guards. All of this will be done at the provincial level.

How much money will the federal government give the provinces to help absorb these costs? Have they thought about that? Perhaps all they thought about was taking $4 or $5 million to hire police officers and focus on more repression? Once these people are put in prison, who will foot the bill? The provinces. How much money will they get from the federal government to support the bill?

Is the member's province prepared to invest even more money to please Conservatives with no social conscience? I await his answer.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, members are clapping because that is an excellent question. Of course, the government had promised more police officers but it did not deliver them.

The member's question about the courts, and provincial and territorial jails is excellent. I asked that question twice in committee. In the last round we were at finances and I asked the exact same question.

If these laws are going to be successful, where is the money set aside for the increased onus on not only the jails but the prosecution? What is the government going to do about it? Are there any calculations? The minister had no answers. He said, basically, “We'll cross that bridge when we come to it”.

I asked again today because we are back in another cycle. Now some of the bills have been passed. Has there been any analysis done in the last year since I asked the question? No. There were hums and haws, and really no answer as to why there was not sufficient money for the prosecution, the increase in legal aid that this is going to cost, and money for the penitentiary systems both provincial and federal.

I have visited the jails. It is such a shame. The prisoners are already crying for healing and education. I asked one of them in the fall, “Don't you go to school all day?” He said, “The teacher quit, they're going to hire one next year”. There is not enough training so that persons can get back safely into society.

Now the government is going to overcrowd the jails when they do not even have enough resources. It will make the jails even worse places, turning out even more hardened criminals, making them less adjusted people.

The member raised a very good point. I will be delighted if anyone in the government gets up to suggest that if its plan happens to be a success, there are going to be some resources to deal with the increase of people in our prison system.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, when I talk to people in my home town about this crime agenda, they are not so much motivated by a sense of vengeance or wanting to seek retribution. Primarily, they are really concerned about ensuring that we do not have more victims in our communities. They are more interested on the prevention end than the hard-nosed, get tough on crime approach that we are seeing from the government.

I am sure the member has heard, as a member of the committee, many people bring forward positive suggestions for crime prevention measures. I heard the member talk about restorative justice and initiatives such as those. Could the member elaborate on those to create a more balanced picture of how we in this chamber should be dealing with crime?

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, last week in Ottawa there was a great restorative justice session where the victims and the offender came together and said that it was a great improvement and that it was moving forward. The police chief said that the present system had failed and that there was a 70% failure rate in the present system in diversion and rehabilitation and a 35% to 42% failure with the circles.

We are finally getting some success and what do we get in Parliament? We get Bill C-9, which tries to take away those success stories.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest this afternoon to hon. members and I would like to thank the members of the Liberal Party, the Bloc and, of course, our member for Windsor—Tecumseh for their thoughtful comments.

The member for Windsor—Tecumseh has had 27 years experience as a lawyer and understands the system. Therefore, I have full confidence in him when I ask him what he thinks of this or how should we do that. He always has very good answers that have been well researched.

I want to let everyone know that when we talk about crime prevention and the justice system, we are doing that from very well researched sources and very thought out policy. I want to make sure that people are aware of that.

On the other hand, I did not have a chance today to listen to any members from the Conservative Party, which is probably a good thing.

Before we came back, people in my riding were asking about this crime stuff. They wanted to know what we were doing and what was going on. I basically said that the government had postponed the session and I then explained the whole idea of prorogation. I said that it did not make any sense and that it was a waste of money. I told them that everything that had been done will need to be restarted again. I said that all the work will need to be rekindled again and all those wages for the committee will need to be paid again. As a matter of fact, the agriculture committee just went back to work this week.

This is a symptom of what has happened and the whole idea of a delay. As my colleague from Windsor--Tecumseh said, at least four bills were already in the process before the delay and two bills may even have been law today. We might have had a couple of good crime bills, which everyone had worked on together and other parties had a chance to make amendments. We could have been going forward but instead it is almost as if we are being held, and I hate to use the word, hostage.

I heard arguments today that if we do not support the bill why did we vote for it. A lot of us voted for the bill because we felt that there was no alternative. Some good amended bills, which were worked on, discussed and should have been law, are part of this package and we should not delay them any longer.

We are at the stage now where we have this omnibus bill and we are in the process of debating it. I want to make it clear that I agree fully with what my colleague from Windsor—Tecumseh said about Bill C-27, the dangerous offenders bill, which is that we tried to amend one part of it relating to dangerous offenders upon a third conviction and would place the reverse onus on the convicted person to prove that he or she should not be considered a dangerous offender. Apparently there will be challenges and problems with it but the bill will be passed and I guess we must to live with it.

I would like to share with the House an article from the Penticton Western News, which touches on my riding and on the riding of the Minister of Public Safety. The editorial, “Legislation plays on public fears”, states:

Canadian jurisprudence -- once an example of moderation -- is changing for the worse. This is the conclusion we draw from the Tackling Violent Crime Act now winding its way through the House of Commons.

I might add that this is not some kind of a left wing newspaper that is always constantly attacking government policy or the mainstream way of life.

It goes on to state:

This broad, sweeping piece of legislation threatens to inject Canada's legal DNA with alien elements that may not only be unconstitutional, but also unconscionable because they fan private fears by exaggerated public threats.

We have seen this topic discussed among members of the opposition parties today.

The article goes on to state:

While the provision to raise the age of consent to 16 is a welcome measure to bring Canada in line with the rest of the developed world, the rest of the act -- which actually includes five bills -- is nothing short of demagoguery.

Its tough language implies that we live in a crime-ridden society, when nothing could be further from the truth. National crime statistics have declined to the lowest levels in 25 years.

Other members have mentioned the United States, our neighbour to the south, which has an incarceration rate of over 700 people per 100,000 people, the highest incarceration rate in the world, followed only by Russia with something like over 400 people per 100,000, and China. The Canadian rate is something like 100 people per 100,000 people.

When I ask people whether they would feel safer in a country that has an incarceration rate of 700 per 100,000 or in a country like Canada which has an incarceration rate of 100 per 100,000, they obviously say Canada. Something is not quite right here.

The article goes on to state:

Yet, in spite of all the available evidence, [the] Prime Minister...has convinced many that our streets and communities are indeed not safe. What we need instead, he argues, are tougher penalties for criminals and more prisons to hold them for longer, if not indefinitely. Once again, this approach contradicts all the available evidence about the effectiveness of long prison sentences.

While criminals need to be punished, they also need to undergo rehabilitation, so they will not return to their old ways once they are out of prison.

Yet this government has failed has failed to support such programs, prompting complaints from guards, whom one might expect to support a larger prison system.

The article goes on to state:

But that is not the worst part of this act. It creates an unnecessary atmosphere of fear, paranoia and suspicion.

Earlier, the NDP agenda was discussed. It is based on the same philosophy as the Bloc Québécois', that is, that prevention and protection must be emphasized alongside punishment. Together, these three fundamental principles are effective at fighting crime. This bill, however, is only about punishment.

I would like to pick up on the article about the report “Unlocking America”, which my hon. colleague talked about earlier. The article reads:

Due largely to tough-on-crime policies, the Unlocking America report says, there are now eight times as many people in U.S. prisons and jails as there were in 1970.

In fact, the U.S. states with the lowest incarceration rates generally have the lowest crime rates, it says.

I asked that question earlier and I would like to ensure this is on the record. The article goes on to state:

U.S. taxpayers now spend more than $60 billion a year on corrections, says the report. “The net result is an expensive system that relies much too heavily on imprisonment, is increasingly ineffective and diverts large sums of taxpayers' money from more effective crime control strategies.”

Interestingly enough, the government promised to increase the number of officers on the police force. We have not seen those numbers so far and yet the government is willing to build more prisons with our money to put more people in jail. Something here does not make sense.

The article continues:

Much of the burden has fallen on disadvantaged minorities. Blacks and Latinos make up 60 per cent of the U.S.'s prison population. According to the report, eight per cent of American black men of working age are now behind bars. “In effect, the imprisonment binge created our own American apartheid,” it says.

My hon. colleague from Windsor—Tecumseh gave me an interesting statistic. He said that as far as dangerous offenders go in our country, although 3% of our population is made up of first nations people, in the dangerous offender category, 20% of the prisoners are from first nations communities. There is something not quite right. The danger is that if we implement a lot of the provisions of this new act, this will increase even more.

In talking about the United States, the report states:

“At current rates, one-third of all black males, one-sixth of Latino males and one in 17 white males will go to prison during their lives. Incarceration rates this high are a national tragedy.”

U.S. prisoners receive sentences that are twice as long as British prisoners, three times as long as Canadian prisoners and five-to-10 times as long as French prisoners, the report says. “Yet these countries' rates of violent crime are lower than ours.”

Since the early 1990s, U.S. crime rates have fallen sharply and are now about 40 per cent below their peak. The report says it's “tempting” to conclude that this decline occurred because incarceration rates soared during the same period.

However, this is not, according to the article, true. It states:

“Most scientific evidence suggests that there is little if any relationship between fluctuations in crime rates and incarceration rates.”

In fact, in many cases, crime rates have risen or fallen independent of imprisonment rates, it says.

What are we to conclude as we debate this bill? The first conclusion, in summary, is that we have wasted time. A lot of these bills could have been in effect now but, as I mentioned earlier, we have been held hostage, for lack of a better word. If we support part of this bill, then we must vote for the whole bill. If we see a flaw in Bill C-27 that has not been corrected, then we must leave it up to the courts to do it.

I believe I have expressed the concerns that I have and the concerns of a lot of citizens in my riding.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative government promised to hire 2,500 new policemen and to seek RCMP recruits, even in the instance where the RCMP itself is having difficulties bringing the levels up on a normal evaluation. What does the member think about the unkept promises of the law and order government?

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is evident that a promise has been broken. A program should have been in place by now. We should be working on increasing policing in our cities and small communities. We have seen some of the negative effects of it. I submit that rather than dwelling on this bill and rehashing what should have gone through, this is the direction that we should have been taking in the last few months.